ARGENTINA: Spanish prime minister Zapatero visits Argentina

Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero meets with Argentine leaders the Kirchners in Buenos Aires, shortly after a spat with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Shortly after a spat with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, the prime minister of Spain -- Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero -- touched down in Argentina for a short presidential visit on Saturday (November 10). Spain's King Juan Carlos told Chavez to "shut up" after the Venezuelan leader tried to interrupt a speech by Zapatero at the Ibero-American summit in Chile. Zapatero stopped in the capital Buenos Aires and visited a giant riverside monument that displays the names of thousands of Argentines that "disappeared" during the last military dictatorship. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a human rights group dedicated to seeking justice for the victims of the dictatorship, greeted the Spanish leader warmly and toured with him through the site. During the seven-year military dictatorship in Argentina, human rights groups say 30,000 people either died or were abducted before the country returned to democracy in 1983. Official figures put the number closer to 11,000 people. Zapatero threw a floral offering out over the Rio De Plata river which borders the monument. Later testimonials from convicted navy soldiers revealed that many of those abducted were injected with sleeping drugs, then piled together in groups and flown out over the river where, still sleeping, they were thrown out of the planes into the water. The Rio de la Plata is the same river at the centre of a conflict between Argentina and their neighbor Uruguay that Zapatero had early called to be resolved. On Thursday, Uruguay granted a long-awaited start-up permit to a Finnish group for a controversial pulp mill that Argentine says will pollute the waterway. Zapatero said the monument would help Argentines to remember what happened to their country. "This monument represents memory but also dignity. Dignity of many women that have fought, that have maintained the flame alive for liberty against indignity, for freedom against the military dictatorship, for memory against the intolerable possibility of forgetting. Today, Argentina, with this monument, remembers its past so that more than anything this does not happen again." Zapatero then visited Argentina's outgoing president Nestor Kirchner, and his wife -- the president-elect -- Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The three meet at the country's presidential palace in the north of Buenos Aires, and were expected to discuss possible strategies for the situation with Uruguay. Zapatero had earlier told press in Santiago that Spain was "in favor" of Argentina calming tensions over the new paper mill. Next the Spanish leader is expected to travel to Uruguay on Sunday where he is to meet with Uruguayan leader Tabare Vazquez.

ITN Source | November 11, 2007

Tags:. .summit. .maintained. .flame. .dedicated. .closer